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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23087314">I Want Her</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylechallenge1/pseuds/stylechallenge1'>stylechallenge1</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Call the Midwife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:42:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,942</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23087314</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylechallenge1/pseuds/stylechallenge1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Delia and Patsy meet again in the modern day. Delia is a 30-something bookstore clerk, and Patsy is an older, more accomplished professional woman.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Delia Busby/Patsy Mount</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my second attempt at a Pupcake story. I know I couldn't finish my last attempt - writers' block got the better of me - but I'm trying again! This story is told from Delia's point of view.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Delia is working as a bookstore clerk, and she keeps seeing the same attractive older woman with the red hair...</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There were lots of regulars at the bookstore where I worked, and when you've worked somewhere as long as I have, you start to notice their routines. The old man in the shamrock green coat who came in every day to buy a newspaper, though he would have saved a lot of money if he'd just ordered his own subscription. He might not have had a home where he could have it delivered, I realized one day, recognizing my cruelty. There was the woman with the cascading dark hair who'd materialize almost immediately when we put out new hard copies on the New Releases table at the front of the store. You’d never notice her coming through the front doors, then there she was. There were the pair of gender-unidentifiable teens who'd browse through the magazines and order Italian sodas, pocketing the occasional bookmark or trinket, killing time before they had to get home.</p><p>For one reason or another, we didn't have many serious people as our regulars. Labeling people as "unserious" is shitty, but that's what my manager Seungjae told me to do. He was all about class status, which was why it didn’t make sense his job was as a bookstore manager. "Most regular people only buy a book or two once a month at the most. The ones who come in more than that are desperate or nuts," he said once. But a middle-aged woman who didn't fit Seungjae's mold started coming into the shop regularly. I started seeing her in October, November maybe, and she'd always come in wearing a pantsuit and a camel-colored wool coat. She'd walk purposefully toward the novels and read the little cards the staff wrote about their favorites. She’d come every week, or every other week, and buy a book or two.</p><p>I started watching her. I'm not sure when. She might have been coming in for weeks by that point, months even. It wasn’t like I was thinking about her, or hoping she’d appear, but when she was at the shop, I always noticed. That should have meant something, I wanted that noticing to mean something. I felt that little anxiousness in my stomach. Like I couldn't let her catch me looking or she'd know. What she'd know I didn't know, because I didn't know myself.</p><p>I started calling her the woman in the camel coat. To myself. I didn't tell anybody else about her, of course. What would I say?</p><p>One day, I was supposed to be working the reference desk, where people came to ask where they could find the books they were looking for. She came in, though she was so far away from me that I recognized her coat and her hair, not her face. She lingered by the recently-released hard covers at the front of the store, and she even picked up a few, read their synopses, and put them down. My back tensed. She headed toward the back of the store, where we kept recommended or seasonally-appropriate books.</p><p>She was coming closer to me, poking into shelves like she was looking for something. I wanted her to ask me a question just as much as I didn't want her to ask me a question. I didn't know if I'd be able to look at her like I would any other person, like I'd only be able to look at her above her forehead or between her eyes. </p><p>But she didn't ask me anything. I saw her take down the book she wanted; she found it on her own.</p><p>Over the next few months, just when I'd forgotten her, she was there again. In my periphery. It wasn't like I thought of her regularly, or at all really, but whenever I felt flushed and nervous, I'd turn around around and she'd be there. I was always glad to see her again, I was swept up. It was nice to have a crush, or whatever this was, because it broke up the routine. I was 33 and still couldn’t believe how predictable my life had turned out to be. When the woman in the camel coat would sweep out the door again after twenty minutes of browsing with a book in her bag, I always felt a little bit sorry that I hadn’t talked to her, hadn’t lingered close to her to re-stock a book. I was sure I'd never see her again. Heartsick was the only thing I could think to say I was, though that wasn't quite right. I thought we could be something to each other that we were never going to be.</p><p>That’s crazy, right? We’d never spoken a single word.</p><p>I was in a mad rush on a cold and rainy Saturday, checking out people who'd had to wait in a longer line than they'd expected. I didn't have time to watch for anybody, and I didn't even remember the woman in the camel coat existed.</p><p>That was when she appeared in front of me at the register. I saw her face, her hair, her hands more closely than I ever had before. I looked first at the books she was buying - Roberto Bolaño's <em>2666</em> and Ann Patchett's <em>Commonwealth</em>. Good choices. I liked both writers. It was only after I'd slid the books towards me that I looked up at her. Or, more accurately, at her coat collar nestling her cream turtleneck.</p><p>I hadn’t been right, I could make eye contact with her. She was older than I thought, with wrinkles around her eyes and mouth that told me she was past fifty. "Do you have a punch card?" I asked.</p><p>"Oh," she said, surprised like she didn’t shop here all the time, and reached into her purse to retrieve her wallet.</p><p>I could have said something to her, something pleasant and friendly. If the line didn't already snake around the new books table, I would have told her that I'd liked Commonwealth or that I'd bought 2666 years ago but had been too intimidated by its length to open it.</p><p>"Here it is," she said, handing me the loyalty card with a little smile.</p><p>I took it and stamped it twice. "Would you like a bag?" These were the same things that I said to every customer, but I was hoping for a streak of inspiration, some way to capture her attention and make her stay. What was wrong with me? I couldn't remember the last time I’d felt this giddy about someone I’d never met.</p><p>She shook her head and swung her handbag towards me, indicating that she'd have room inside for the books.</p><p>I rang up her choices and told her the price. She handed me a credit card, looking out the window past me to the blustery branches there. She didn’t want to look at me. She'd never noticed me before, obviously. She didn't even see me now.</p><p>I gave her the receipt. "Thank you."</p><p>"Can you recycle that for me?" she said, nodding to paper.</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Thank you," she said, sliding the books from the counter and into her bag.</p><p>And that was it. That was how we met.</p><p> </p><p>I thought things would continue like that indefinitely. She’d come into the bookstore every so often; I’d see what she was reading if I was working the register. But then I saw again, somewhere else. I was out at a fancy bar without my wife, drinking while my friend Tony served drinks. I'd finished the basket of bread he'd given me for free and looked around at the other patrons. There she was, as simple as that. I found her immensely attractive, though the real potential of her had been abstract until that moment. I’d never have thought I’d see her here. I realized I’d never really pictured her life outside the bookstore at all, really, but there she was alone with a cocktail, reading. As I watched her closer, I saw she was reading the book I'd sold her - <em>2666</em>.</p><p>“Look at her,” I whispered to Tony, three drinks in, or maybe four, nodding in her direction. I couldn’t hold my liquor anymore. I wished I hadn’t said anything to my friend, with his chiseled face and day-old stubble, because he was too good-looking to understand. I was used to being closed up tight, poised, and I liked myself better that way. I’d rather say nothing than embarrass myself.</p><p>“Honey, come on,” the bartender winked at me. Gay men were unversed in the lusts of a 30-something W4W. “That woman looks like she goes to the opera.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“I never knew you were into matriarchs.”</p><p>“I am.”</p><p>“You’re just jealous as shit about Amelia. That’s the only reason you’re making eyes at that woman.”</p><p>“Not jealous. Intrigued. And free to explore.”</p><p>“You’re never going to talk to her.”</p><p>“I will.”</p><p>“Bullshit.”</p><p>“I will!”</p><p>He shrugged and went to make another drink.</p><p>Just like at the bookstore, I couldn’t stop watching her. Was she really the matriarch of a clan of children? I wanted to adopt a couple kids, but my wife was noncommittal. She made enough money doing something in tech I didn’t understand to buy us a condo in Camden.</p><p>The feminist thing to do would have been to go up to my crush reeking of sweat and lust, but I could only buy the second least expensive glass of wine and hope. Was I relatable to anyone? Did anyone love me?</p><p>I shouldn’t have had so much to drink that night, and I should have slept with more people when I was 22 so I could control myself now. I was uncomfortable with my wants, but that didn’t mean I could stop my attractions, to people, to foods, to habits, to spontaneities, from spurting out of me in uncomfortable ways. These were probably revolting to everyone but most definitely to me. Tonight, I couldn’t stop myself from drinking too many cocktails and eating too much foccaccia in a fancy gastropub in my neighborhood and ogling the woman who frequented my workplace.</p><p> </p><p>My wife was out of the house that night, like she was every Friday night, and left me to fend for myself. She was staying over at her “young lover’s” apartment and had been excited enough about it to pack her bag the night before. I wasn't jealous that Amelia had found someone to date so soon after we opened our relationship. I hadn't found anyone, I hadn't even really tried. I wanted to sleep with someone new but worried no one would find me attractive.</p><p>When Amelia reminded me she was staying over at Grizz’s that night, like she always did, she sounded like a child bursting with excitement to stay overnight at someone else's house. That had been fun when I was a kid, staying over with a friend, and seeing their bedrooms and what their parents stocked in their refrigerators. Amelia and I had been together so long I couldn't remember the last time I'd really explored someone's house like you did when you stayed overnight. We had friends who invited us over for dinner or parties, but there were only so many opportunities you had to look through someone's medicine cabinet.<br/>
I didn't mind being left by myself. I looked forward to time alone, where I could go where I wanted and do what I wanted. For too long, Amelia and I did everything together, and I did nothing by myself. I'd just started growing brave enough to do things alone. I planned to go to Tony's bar by myself that night, eat too much gluten, and read some of the YA Lit that I got for free at work.</p><p>Amelia had chosen someone younger than me, someone more hipless, hairless, breast-less, a less-gendered thing than I’d ever been. I’d aged up in my preferences, someone who would teach me about aging gracefully but would value what I knew about wildness. I’d never understood ferocity but someone two decades older than me would think I did. Older people thought I was still young, even though I had a mortgage and dinner parties and knew how to deep-clean the shower. After all, I hadn't dated anyone but Amelia for 12 years. Even though I'd had crushes on plenty of people over that decade, I couldn't act on my impulses out of faithfulness to my girlfriend, then my wife. But right after we opened our marriage, Amelia had no trouble finding someone else.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It was now or never. My life was still imaginary, a might and a might and a might. I imagined that everything was settled for the woman in the camel coat and her husband of many decades, and helping her retract some choices, white-out some of those decisions, was so appealing to me my lust took over. I was embarrassed by my desire, but I’d had too much to drink so I slid over to the chair next to hers. “How’s <em>2666</em>?” I asked.</p><p>She grinned at me. “You’re the bookstore girl, aren’t you?”</p><p>I didn’t love being called a girl but was so thrilled she recognized me that I held out my hand. “Delia Busby.”</p><p>She took my hand for a shake. “Patsy Mount.”<br/>
I took it, and then glanced at Tony, who rolled his eyes. Why try? his look said, and really, I agreed. My wife was the adventurous one; her new on-the-side paramour had taken her to a rave and given her shrooms. But here I was, talking to the woman in the camel coat. The coat was there, even, under the bar on a hook.</p><p>“To be honest, I can’t get past the first chapter,” she said sheepishly, tracing the cover with her fingers.</p><p>“I bought it ages ago, but I’ve been too intimidated to open it!”</p><p>Patsy motioned the bartender over. “Another round for me and my friend?"</p><p>“Isn’t it ‘my friend and I’?” I asked. Was I flirting? I felt like I was to be sick. The thing that I never thought would happen: we were talking.</p><p>“Oh, stop!” She laughed. “Sorry, that was presumptuous, ordering you another drink. I'm too far gone to drive myself, and I'm going to be sick tomorrow, so why not keep going? You don’t have to drink it."</p><p>“I’ll drink it. I can walk home."</p><p> </p><p>“Really? That’s tremendous!” She slapped me on the back like I’d made a wonderful decision.</p><p>I raised my eyebrows. “Thanks,” I said, stupidly proud. I liked her liking me, finding me interesting. Everybody likes to think they're interested in other people, but mostly they just want someone to be interested in them. At least I could be honest in saying I was interested and wanted to be interesting. “How long does it take for you to get home?” I asked.</p><p>“I live in Primrose Hill,” she said. “It’s so beautiful there, I hate it.”</p><p>“Why don't you leave?”</p><p>“My husband.”</p><p>“Oh.” Darn, I thought.</p><p>“I met my brother in your neighborhood. We meet halfway. He lives in the suburbs. Camden was a mistake, though. I don’t think my brother’s ever even seen a fag.”<br/>
Tony overheard and looked offended.</p><p>“Sorry, that’s just what my brother would say.”</p><p>“You have a straight brother who goes around saying ‘fag’?” Tony asked.</p><p>“What can I do? I’ll leave you a giant tip to make up for my familial homophobia.”</p><p>Tony nodded as he delivered our cocktails. I shouldn’t have another one, I was feeling good and just about to tip over into tiredness, but I knew I wouldn’t have enough confidence to keep talking to her without this next round. Tony caught my eye and rolled his. Did he actively not want Patsy to be attracted to me, or did he think it was impossible that she would? Yes, she was an attractive woman in a white pantsuit and dark heels, but not every woman had to pledge allegiance to men. I knew I was kidding myself, though. Patsy was married to a man. We were just having a conversation, woman to woman.</p><p>“How long have you been working at the bookstore?” she asked only a little judgmentally.</p><p>“Going on six years now. I worked at a couple other stores before that.”</p><p>“Great!”</p><p>She might love our bookstore, but I could tell she wasn’t impressed by my job. I was doing fine, really. Until people reminded me that I shouldn’t be satisfied with my career, or lack of one, I'd accepted how I spent my time. I would have liked to be more self-sufficient, though. If I didn’t have Amelia, I’d need a roommate to afford to stay in this neighborhood.</p><p>“What do you do?” I asked. I hated the question, but I knew it was the next step in this conversation.</p><p>“I’m the Nursing Chairperson, at King's College.”</p><p>Oh, Jesus, I thought. She was way out of my league. “Impressive.”</p><p>Patsy was sitting very close to me, and I could smell the bourbon on her breath. “You know, Delia, I come into Camden because I need to get away from my husband sometimes. Are you married?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“So you know what it’s like, then. Your husband’s always there, when you get home, when you leave in the mornings. At work, people are always talking to me, and then when I get home, my husband starts talking to me, and then he expects us to watch telly together. Why is that?”</p><p>“If your house is so big, maybe you could have two TVs?”</p><p>“We like the same shows.”</p><p>I shrugged. “I don’t have a husband.”</p><p>“You said you were married?”</p><p>“To my wife.”</p><p>“You’re gay?”</p><p>Patsy raised her eyebrows, maybe because I had long hair and wore lipstick. She heaved a long sigh. “I sometimes think I should have stayed single.” There it was – the retraction I was looking for. The regret. Next, she'd give me advice, or ask for commiseration. “Or I should have chosen a woman.”<br/>
I breathed; I hadn’t been expecting that.</p><p>“I’m sure my marriage isn’t all that different from yours.”</p><p>She laughed, tipping her head back toward the ceiling. “So you’re a real dyke, then?”</p><p>I nodded, still uncomfortable with the slurs she was so casually throwing around, like she was one of us.</p><p>“Being married to Mateo is hard," she continued. "Sometimes, we don’t even see each other for days.”</p><p>“Jesus, Patsy, your house must really be big.”</p><p>“My husband won’t even admit I’m queer to himself, even though I was dating a woman when we met in '95. He never would have thought she was my girlfriend.</p><p>She was pretty, long-haired. She dumped me and took up with someone butch, saying she could give her more than some heterosexual who didn’t know what she wanted.”</p><p>“That’s rough," I said. Patsy was so drunk I wondered if I should stop her from confessing, or if I should encourage her to keep talking.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>I think Tony stopped making our cocktails to their normal strength because I didn’t feel like I was about to puke, though I’d had five, or maybe six. Maybe he was really my friend after all. “Closing time, ladies. Deels, call me tomorrow, OK? I’ve got to close up so I can’t walk you out. Have a good night.” He winked again when Patsy took my arm to get down from the stool. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.</p><p>I assumed that Patsy would call an Uber, but she followed me out to the street, wobbling a little. “My son’s coming home tomorrow for a week. He’s about to graduate with a computer science degree from Oxford. I hate admitting that I’m a little disappointed.”</p><p>“That he’s coming home?”</p><p>“By his major. It’s sad.”</p><p>“It’s more impressive than working at a bookstore.”</p><p>“Self-deprecation, is that your defense mechanism?”</p><p>“Working at a bookstore doesn’t impress anybody, but at least it doesn’t stress me out. My wife’s in tech, and she’s anxious all the time. They’re trying to push her out now that she’s too old.”</p><p>“How old is she?”</p><p>“34.” I was embarrassed, I’d stuck my foot in my mouth. Patsy had to be at least 15 years older than that.</p><p>“Hm.”</p><p>“Tech’s all about kids, like literal children, you know?”</p><p>“What’s her name, your wife?”</p><p>“Amelia.”</p><p>Patsy stumbled over a curb and giggled at herself.</p><p>“Are you going to call an Uber?” I asked.</p><p>“They’re a terrible company!”</p><p>“Right. Then a taxi.”</p><p>“Yes, I will.” She took my hand, in a way that almost seemed like an accident .</p><p>I was so surprised, my jaw dropped, just like in the movies. “Are you having trouble balancing?”</p><p>“Not particularly, why?”</p><p>“You’ve taken my hand.”</p><p>Patsy stopped walking and turned to me, still holding my arm. “God, you young people think you invented living. Do you have to examine every last thing?”<br/>
She was looking at me really intensely. If I wouldn’t have known about her husband, if she’d been anyone else, I would have thought she wanted to kiss me. But that I couldn’t be right. “Are you feeling OK? I know you had a lot to drink, so—”</p><p>“Come on, Delia. You understand.” Patsy pulled my face towards her, and kissed me. There was no mistaking what she wanted, and I wished I was in my fifties too so I could be that decisive.</p><p>I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I was going to faint on the street. I held myself upright; I couldn’t let her know how much she’d affected me. Surely, she hadn’t meant to kiss me. Surely, she’d just had too much to drink and wasn’t making reasonable choices.</p><p>I pulled back and realized where I was, on a busy street corner with the smell of hot dogs wafting from a portable cart and a dive bar’s neon sign basking the sidewalk in a red glow. Somebody whooped near us, and at first, I thought that someone was getting his rocks off on our desire. My shame. But nobody noticed. Of course no one noticed us; this was the busiest corner in London at midnight on a Saturday night, and most people were up to crazier shit than this. I’d had my first kiss in twelve years with someone new on the wildest street I’d ever seen.</p><p>Patsy was grinning and still holding both my hands. How was she so calm? I didn’t understand how she wasn’t panicking, how she was a college professor and still able to be this bold? “See? I’m fine,” she leaned in to say.</p><p>“I’ve really got to get home,” I said, wanting to kiss her again but also wanting to cry. Why wasn’t my wife enough for me? Why wasn’t Patsy’s husband enough for her?I couldn’t bear to see her face dawn with recognition of what she’d done, then embarrassment. I turned to go, darting around three guys in leather loafers walking shoulder-to-should down the sidewalk. I couldn’t stand when people took up the whole sidewalk, so I bumped into the third guy with too much force.</p><p>“Hey, watch it!” he barked.</p><p>I didn’t apologize. I wanted to bury myself in this crowd, get away from Patsy and my uncomfortable needs. I had a good life, and I was tired of always wanting more. Patsy was just part of my constant need for novelty.</p><p>“Delia, wait!” Patsy called. I turned around to look: she was running after me!</p><p>How funny, I thought, giggling as I hurried forward, zigzagging around groups of shouting drunk people on the sidewalk. My condo was 10 blocks from here, I couldn’t get an Uber fast enough to spirit me away from Patsy on a busy night like this. But surely I could outrun her. I was wearing flats. I'd made it two blocks when I was stopped by a no-walk light. I was about to make a run for it, but then the cars started moving, and there was no way I could run out if I didn’t want to get hit. I breathed hard, defeated. Patsy would catch up with me.</p><p>And then she was there, what I'd wanted and hadn’t, grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the street towards a closed taco shop She was the best-dressed person around, the oldest, too. I was already feeling too old for Camden, with all of its young people and their brightly-colored hair and their black leather grunge-wear. She seemed so much better than all of this, so much better than me, but yet there she was, in the middle of it all. She caught my arm and pulled me away from the crowd to stand in between two buildings, in a partially-lit alleyway.</p><p>“This is really dangerous,” I said, looking around. “There are probably rats.”</p><p>“Don’t run away from me, Delia,” she said, still holding onto my forearm like I might twist away.</p><p>“Did you mean to do that?” I said, feeling like I was going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry.</p><p>“Yes!” she nodded earnestly.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“I wanted to.”</p><p>I rubbed my hand over my face and said, “Ugh, really?”</p><p>“Isn’t this surprising?” she asked.</p><p>I wanted to ask what she meant, but I already knew. Our connection. How unexpected it was.</p><p>I looked over at the sign from the business across the street, flashing its message about discount pantyhose. London got chilly at night, even in the summer, and I shivered. I couldn’t believe she’d run after me - how miraculous.</p><p>I started to laugh. This was absurd, two people no one would ever guess felt this way about each other. But wasn’t all attraction between women like that? I’d had crushes on strangers before, but it was entirely different to have a crush unfurl into something real. I laughed, and I couldn’t stop, and then Patsy was laughing with me, too, holding onto my shoulders.</p><p>“What’s so funny?” a white kid with his arm around his girlfriend’s waist stopped to ask us.</p><p>But we didn’t answer, we just kept laughing until we were weeping with our arms around each other.</p><p>Still laughing, Patsy brought her arms down from my shoulders and noticed the time on her wristwatch. “Shit. It’s late.” She pulled out her wallet from her purse and handed her business card to me. “Call me, OK?” She winked and walked down the street with all the confidence I wished I had.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>We get to know Delia's rocky relationship with her wife, Amelia.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On my walk home, I berated myself. Why hadn’t I insisted Patsy Mount stay for a snack before she went home? Amelia wouldn't have been there, and we definitely had olives in the fridge. There might even have been some of the fancy brie that Amelia bought for $20 a rind. If Patsy could have come inside, she could have seen me as a real person with a real life, instead of just the bookstore girl. After all, I lived in the heart of the city, and didn’t that mean something? </p><p>But instead we’d stood laughing and weeping on the street corner, and I’d likely never see her again, except at the bookstore. "Can I punch your loyalty card?" I'd ask if she came to my register, and she'd hand me the card like I was no one to her, smiling like she would at any other service worker. I imagined Patsy Mount would have entire memory loss about our night together. </p><p>After all, she'd given me her <em>business card</em>.</p><p>I opened the door to my flat, elated and devastated. If one kiss made me behave irrationally enough to run down the street, making out with Patsy would probably make me go completely mad. I retrieved her card from my wallet to see if I’d misunderstood, but I hadn’t. She’d really given me the same card she networked with at conferences. It had only her office number on it.<em> Jesus</em>. I threw the card across the room, annoyed with myself, annoyed with Patsy. This must have meant she never wanted to see me again. She probably wouldn’t even frequent the bookstore anymore. </p><p>I went to sleep and thought I’d dream about Patsy. I didn’t dream. </p><p> </p><p><br/>
Amelia came back Saturday afternoon, trailing a lazy, post-sex smile. I’d spent the morning watching cartoons and eating cereal, like a kid. She dropped her duffel and cupped her hand to my cheek. “What do you want for dinner?” she asked tenderly.</p><p>Amelia said that opening our marriage was the best thing we’d ever done for our relationship, better even than getting married. I wasn’t sure. We didn’t have sex much anymore, but that wasn't the problem. I was a little jealous, not of her liking other people, but because I struggled to meet anyone and she didn't. I saw the positives of the arrangement, though. She valued me more when she returned from a night away. As much as she lusted for Grizz, she appreciated our equitable division of household chores.</p><p>“What if the adoption agencies find out you’re fucking a child?” I asked.</p><p>“They’re 21.” </p><p>“Yeah, a child.”</p><p>“Deels.”</p><p>“Those agencies go over every detail. They comb through everything. What if they find out?”</p><p>“Grizz isn’t on social media. Only on Squander.”</p><p>“What’s that?”</p><p>“A task-trading app. You know, somebody installs your drapery, you mow their lawn.”</p><p>“We don’t have a lawn!”</p><p>She half-smiled at me. “That’s just an example. Grizz installed our new drawer-pulls,” she gestured to the kitchen cabinets, “and I helped them with their programming homework.”</p><p>“<em>That's</em> how you met?”</p><p>“You and I’d already decided to see other people.”</p><p>“Why do you like someone who looks nothing like me?”</p><p>“I already have you.” She leaned to kiss me. “Besides, your preference now is middle-aged women with flowing hair.”</p><p>She was right. Amelia was built like a squat tank, with a wide torso and thick arms and legs. She’d had short hair since we’d graduated from college and dressed like a church-going southern boy.</p><p>“So, we’re looking for novelty.”</p><p>"Exactly,” Amelia said. She kissed me on the forehead like she was my best friend.</p><p>“I want to make chicken piccata for dinner,” I said. “But I want you to clean out the fridge first, like you promised.”</p><p>“You know why I like going to Grizz’s so much?” Amelia asked.</p><p>“Because you can’t get them out of your head?”</p><p>“Because Grizz doesn’t own property. Grizz doesn’t even own a box spring, and they eat £10 teriyaki out of a take-out container most nights.”</p><p>“You don’t want to live like that.”</p><p>“No, I don’t. But sometimes I do.” Amelia’s phone buzzed, and she practically leapt across the room to get it. She read the message and grinned.</p><p>“Grizz, right?”</p><p>"You have no idea what the expectations of dating a Gen Z’er are, Delia. I can hardly keep up with the correspondence.”</p><p><br/>
  </p><p><br/>
Amelia and I bummed around the condo all afternoon, though I suspected that both of us wished we were with other people. I cleaned the shower, which was covered in a ring of soap scum and my long hair. Amelia cleared out the fridge. “We can’t keep buying all this produce if we aren’t going to eat it!” she called to me, and I heard her drop of a heap of what was probably wilted kale into the trash.</p><p>“I know!” I called back. We had a similar conversation every Saturday, our unofficial cleaning day. Of course Amelia leaped at the chance to spend a night at Grizz’s. Everybody needed a night off from being adult; it was a condition that I’d only recently realized I’d never outgrow. Was there anything more to life than re-stocking kitchen supplies?</p><p>In the afternoon, Amelia and I napped together. It was one of our traditions, where we’d snuggle under our thick duvet. I fell asleep nearly immediately and half-daydreamed/half-nightmared that I was kissing Patsy behind the dumpster of a German restaurant where Amelia and I had once seen dozens of rats in our car's headlights. I startled awake, my body jerking.</p><p>Amelia took my hand. “You OK, babe?” she asked groggily.</p><p>“Yeah,” I said, but that was all the napping I could handle.</p><p>Later, we decided to go out to dinner at our favorite restaurant, a pizza place with a wood-fire oven on a quiet street. Tribunali was packed, and we had to wait for 20 minutes even to get a seat at the counter. When we finally did, Amelia ordered a light beer, and I was so shocked that I couldn’t even tease her about it. Since when did my Amelia drink light beer?</p><p>“What’s that?” I asked when the waiter delivered her drink, turning the bottle around to read the label.</p><p>“Amstel Light,” she said.</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“I’m gaining weight.”</p><p>I gaped at her. One thing about being with a butch woman, or at the very least being with Amelia, meant that she didn't worry so much about being pretty or thin enough. “No you’re not,” I said, because I didn’t think she was. “Besides, you’re not supposed to care about social expectations.”</p><p>“I’m dating again, Delia; you have to look good when you’re back on the market.”</p><p>She was right. I studied the menu because I didn’t want her to see the look on my face. “That makes me kind of sad.”</p><p>“You already knew I was dating.”</p><p>“No, that you’re worried about what you look like. Does Grizz make you feel bad?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>We looked at each other for a long beat. She meant that <em>I</em> made her feel bad. How could she think that? I always told her I liked what she wore to work. Her phone buzzed, and she stopped looking at me to check at it. Looking at the screen, she smiled.</p><p>I wanted Amelia to want to spend time only with me. “I thought Saturdays were for us.”</p><p>“I’ll put the phone away in a minute.”</p><p>“What’s funny?”</p><p>“Is that Grizz?” I asked, making my voice as nonchalant as possible.</p><p>“Yeah, it is,” she murmured. “I’ll put the phone away in a minute. They’re just telling me about the newest episode of <em>The Great British Bake Off</em>.”</p><p>“Is there a new season?”</p><p>“Yeah. Grizz is watching it now and giving me a play-by-play. God, they’re hilarious.”</p><p>“What’s funny?”</p><p>“Sorry, I can’t really explain.” She laughed to herself again. “There’s a lot of context here you wouldn’t understand.”</p><p>“OK,” I said.</p><p>Amelia looked up from the phone. “No need to get bent out of shape.”</p><p>“I just said, OK.”</p><p>“You had a tone.”</p><p>“I didn’t have a tone.”</p><p>I sighed. I wasn’t going to win this one, and neither was Amelia. We sat staring at our phones, like most of the other couples there. We kept staring even after our pizza was delivered. </p><p>Later, I drove us home, which gave Amelia time to pull out her phone. She was smiling, and even occasionally chuckling as she texted, obviously with Grizz. I couldn’t exactly begrudge her this happiness because she and I had been together such a long time. We weren’t excited to see each other anymore; that much was clear. But I still felt like Amelia should be behaving better.</p><p>I shook my head. There was nothing more I could say that would do any good. Amelia never thought she did anything wrong. We were almost home, and I pulled into the garage. I knew the garage was expensive enough that I insisted on not knowing how much Amelia paid each month.</p><p>Inside, Amelia didn’t put her phone away. She kept laughing and texting with Grizz, who sent a new comment every few minutes. We’d set up clear parameters for the time we’d spend with our significant others, whoever they might be, but that had been hypothetical. Amelia didn’t know how obsessed she’d become.</p><p>I didn’t have the energy to talk to Amelia about that, so I went into the bedroom and closed the door.</p><p>“Weren’t we going to watch a movie?” Amelia called from the living room.</p><p>Was this the end of my marriage? I wondered. I didn’t know what I’d do without Amelia, but I wasn't sure I had the tools to repair whatever had broken. What had broken, and when? “I’m tired,” I called. “I’m just going to read and go to sleep.” </p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Delia and her wife Amelia head out to dinner at a trendy queer space - where they inexplicably run into Patsy, her husband, and her son.</p>
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    <p>A few days after meeting Patsy, I was pretty sure that I’d never see her again. She’d given me her card, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to call her at work. What was she thinking? I’d get her administrative assistant, and then I’d have to make a fake title and reason I was calling. Knowing me, I’d probably even make up a fake name. Why hadn’t I given her <em>my</em> number? Then she could have called me. The only way we could see each other now was if I was tremendously brave, and I wasn't tremendously brave. Not even close. </p><p>Time apart made my embarrassing infatuation with Patsy Mount fester. I imagined her taking me to her family second home, lowering the photographs of her husband and son when we arrived. I pictured us out to dinner together somewhere secret, where we wouldn’t run into anybody we knew. She’d take my hand under the table.</p><p>My wife might be able to have someone to semi-seriously date on the side, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to handle having Patsy as a casual hook-up. I wasn’t very good at being non-monogamous because I was too obsessive. You weren’t supposed to be obsessed with someone you were seeing, that was rule number one. I didn’t think I’d be able to set limits on Patsy the way Amelia and I had agreed we would. One night with Patsy had hooked me.</p><p>“What are you thinking about, babe?” Amelia asked me one night when we were eating spaghetti with store-bought tomato sauce, the same go-to dinner we’d been making since uni.</p><p>“Huh?” I startled from staring out the window. I was imagining Patsy opening her office door to me in blue-grey crushed silk pantsuit. I looked over at Amelia, who looked lumpy in a sports bra under an old t-shirt.</p><p>“You seem kind of distant.”</p><p>“I’m just thinking about work.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“It was stressful today.”  </p><p>“You’re stressed about work?” Amelia could be cruel.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s getting into tourist season,” I said. “I can be stressed about work too, OK?”</p><p>“That’s not what I meant, I just—” </p><p>“Yeah, I know you want me to always remember you have a more important job than I do.”</p><p>“No, but—”</p><p>“Can’t I ask for your sympathy?”</p><p>She raised her hands, a don’t-shoot gesture that she used to absolve herself from what she called my “overreactions.”</p><p>“OK," I said. </p><p>“Are you going to be around on Friday? Grizz wants us to have dinner at this new restaurant, for queers, by queers.”</p><p>I squirmed. “I’m too old for that!”</p><p>“You’re not too old for anything. I’m sure there are going to be 50-something suburban dy—”</p><p>“Don’t be so dismissive of suburbanites!”</p><p>She twitched up her mouth. “I was going to say suburban <em>dykes</em>. You’re being seriously touchy tonight.”</p><p>“Should I just let you get away with being an asshole?”</p><p>“Can I finish?”</p><p>“Fine.”</p><p>“All I meant was that it’s going to be an all-ages space.”</p><p>“When?”</p><p>“Friday.”</p><p>I didn’t want to go and eat with queers who thought they were cooler than me. Who <em>were</em> cooler than me. I’d seen enough hiking gear worn as street-wear to last me a lifetime, but I didn't want to be alone on another Friday night. Amelia had cache in queer spaces as a masculine-of-center person. Usually, I felt like she deserved it her gender presentation had gotten her into trouble with people on the streets, her parents, everyone. But I had my own troubles with being invisible. “OK,” I agreed. “I’ll go.”</p><p>“You will?” Amelia raised her eyebrows. I couldn’t tell if that’s what she wanted me to say or not. </p><p> </p><p>I’d broken the rules of our open relationship by not telling Amelia that I’d met someone. She'd told me right away when she’d arranged her first date with Grizz. I hadn’t wanted to know the details, but Amelia returned promptly at midnight like she’d promised, all smiley and glowing. I hadn’t asked for the details, and really I wanted to be happy for her. I imagined I would have been happy for Amelia if I thought I’d have prospects, but I hadn’t even posted a profile on a dating site. When Amelia and I had gotten together all those years ago, dating sites hadn’t been something regular people used. Now that I was a decade older and had no idea how they worked.</p><p>Of course I hadn’t planned to meet Patsy. I supposed that wasn’t much of an excuse; people probably cheated “by accident” all the time. But I wasn’t cheating, not exactly. Even if I told Amelia what happened and asked for her forgiveness, she'd still feel betrayed. She was all about ethics, morals. She valued her ability to make everyone feel safe and welcome. I knew she’d never lie to me. If she did, I wouldn’t be able to like her anymore. That was the basis of our relationship – trust – but I couldn’t tell her about Patsy.</p><p>Or maybe I didn’t want to.</p><p>My eight-hour shift that Thursday was dull. I was supposed to work from 11am until 7pm. The bookstore stayed open until 11pm every night, but our manager Seungjae was compassionate enough to realize that women shouldn’t close alone. He always scheduled the burliest guys to work the late shift – as burly as bookstore clerks could be – and even hired a security guard because of the drunk guys and homeless people who’d wander in after dark. Seungjae had developed enormous muscles over the six years I’d worked there, but he was small and short and seemed more interested in looking like the men he wanted to sleep with than anything else. He never stayed to close. A perk of the job, he said.</p><p>I usually didn’t feel my work was beneath me, but after Patsy and Amelia’s comments, it was hard not to feel pathetic. If this job wasn’t good enough for me, who was it good enough for?  Why was everyone always striving for something better? The thought exhausted me. Most of my co-workers were aspiring artists with day jobs, but I had no great ambition. What was I supposed to want?</p><p>I’d learned all the skills required for bookstore jobs when I worked at a shop as a temporary job after college and then at the University Bookshop and then at my shop, River Thames. Every season, a bunch of the recent college grads – the hot 24-year-olds and 25-year-olds – were ready to move onto better jobs or grad school or traveling around the world, so they quit. I never had. I’d always thought longingly that I should travel or go to grad school, but those dreams always had been hypothetical. Then I was married and 33 and doing any of those things were more pathetic than they’d been a decade ago.</p><p>I was good at my job. I knew how to talk down unreasonable people who were mad we didn’t carry an obscure book by an obscure novelist. I knew how to encourage local writers who wanted us to carry their memoirs without actually stocking their books. I’d even arranged a reading for those hopefuls in the coffeehouse in the back, and so many guests had come that I couldn’t even see the readers. It might have made those elderly people’s weeks, their months even. I congratulated myself, and Amelia had come, seeming prouder of me than she had in years.</p><p>Maybe that was how my ambition worked, appearing only in times of necessity or compassion.</p><p>Seungjae had worked at River Thames for three years before he was hired to be the night manager and then the General Manager. I think it was because he had his MBA, and the owners had no choice but to hire someone with that credential. He was ambitious, definitely, though he was already 40 when he was hired, so he told me that this was his dream job and he was never going to give it up.</p><p>On my break, he came to sit next to me in our little break room in the back of the shop, holding a tiny cup of espresso. “Listen, Delia,” he said, “Rumour has it that the owners are going to hire a new night manager. I can’t work so much now that I have Philippe.” Philippe was his buff, Ecuadorian boyfriend, Seungjae’s hard-won daddy.</p><p>I clocked myself as less than sex-positive when I was grossed out thinking of the basement sex dungeon Seungjae had obliquely mentioned having in his house. “Just down the street from my parents,” he’d winked. Even Seungjae, the most hipster 40-something I’d ever met, had the good sense to move out of Camden. I already felt way too old to live there, with the twentysomethings getting better looking all the time  with their running mascara and unwashed hair. But Amelia and I had thrown in our hand in this neighborhood and now home prices had dropped, so we’d never get the money we’d paid for our condo back. We’d really have to blow up our lives if we wanted to leave the neighborhood. </p><p>“OK, well, I’ll apply for the job, even if I have to work nights," I said, grateful that Seungjae has come to me. "I have seniority, I think.” </p><p>“Seniority doesn’t matter when there are people with MBAs in the running.”  </p><p>“You think people with MBAs are going to be applying for a night manager job?”</p><p>“Yeah, LBS is graduating too many these days. They’ve oversaturated the market.” London was glutted with people with bachelor’s degrees, Seungjae told me, which was why he’d decided to earn his MBA over six years in the evening program. “You should really do yours, Delia,” he suggested. “I fucking loved it.”</p><p>I rolled my eyes. “That sounds soul-crushing,” I said, though my palms sweat like I was missing out.</p><p>He shrugged. “I’m really doing almost exactly the same thing you do, but I make a lot more money.”</p><p>“Thanks so much.”</p><p>“Marianne, Perez, and Trysteen are leaving this year, did you know that? The girls are going to law school, and Perez is moving to Belize.”</p><p>“Great!”</p><p>“What are your plans?”</p><p>“You already know. What are<em> your</em> plans?” </p><p>“At this point, I’ll probably just be here until I retire,” he told me.</p><p>“Jesus.” I didn't really want to leave either, but thinking about working the same place for the next three decades was bleak. </p><p>“What more could I want?” he continued.</p><p>I tried to look disappointed in him, but I’d thought the same thing myself. I loved books and coffee and walking to work. Why couldn’t some people agree that was enough?</p><p>“Put your name in for the job, all right? Honestly, you can’t be a clerk forever.”</p><p>“But you just said the job will go to someone with an MBA.”</p><p>“Notice how I’m the only person over 40 here?”</p><p>“That’s ageist, Seungjae.”</p><p>“I don’t make the rules. The neighborhood makes the rules. A lot of people come here to cruise, to fantasize about our employees, and nobody wants to fantasize about an old dyke in a cashmere sweater.”</p><p>I cringed at the word. “Whatever. People come here to purposefully avoid eye contact. Besides, an MBA is a totally unnecessary—”</p><p>Seungjae stood abruptly. “Sorry, Delia, I want to keep having this conversation, but I’m just really swamped today, OK? Let’s schedule another time to talk about your professional future.”</p><p> </p><p><br/>After work on Friday, I didn’t know what to wear for dinner with Grizz and Amelia. I’d met Grizz before, one of the requirements Amelia and I had laid out for the people we wanted to date, but only in passing, at a coffee shop. Grizz was impeccably cool, and I’d felt like a frumpy mother driving her kids to soccer practice.</p><p>I was a cliché, but so were they, really. Grizz had a buzzed head and wore Timberland boots and white Carhartt coveralls. “How annoying,” I’d wanted to say about Grizz’s outfit, though the person I usually commiserated with about too-cool people was Amelia. What did it mean that my wife was infatuated with a person who looked like that?</p><p>“I don’t have anything to wear,” I said, plowing through too-patterned shirts and too-flowing pants. The queer scene was about looking edgy and androgynous, and I’d never felt like I’d been able to pull either of those looks off.</p><p>“What you’re wearing is fine, babe!” Amelia called, re-tying her floral bowtie for the third time. What she was wearing wasn’t going to impress anyone, she looked like a school dance chaperone, but I was just wearing jeans and a cardigan and a faded band t-shirt, the bookstore’s inexplicitly-mandated wardrobe.</p><p>“I’m not wearing this,” I called. “You’re getting dressed up.” I pulled on a long black vest.</p><p>“The restaurant’s casual,” Amelia said.</p><p>“Then why are you wearing a bow tie?”</p><p>“I always do.”</p><p>I put the darkest lipstick I had on and fluffed out my hair. I was regularly hit on by middle-age men who’d ask if I had a husband, but queer people rarely noticed me. I wish I’d never told Amelia I’d go out to dinner; I’d much rather order Thai take-out and watch <em>The Office</em> by myself.</p><p>“You ready?” She kissed my cheek and guided me toward the door with her hand on my lower back.</p><p>“Stop,” I said, removing her hand. I was glad I turned out gay because I thought it would make my relationships more equitable, and they were, but sometimes Amelia touched me like she was a dude wearing a tuxedo.</p><p>“We’ve just got to get going, babe. The reservation’s at seven. We’re already going to be late.”</p><p>“Oh, and you think Grizz is going to make it on time?”</p><p>“They’re very punctual.”</p><p>The Lyft – I’d told Amelia we couldn’t take Uber anymore after what Patsy said – was out front when we got there.</p><p>“We could have just walked,” I murmured. I didn’t want to be annoyed with Amelia, but everything she was doing lately was getting on my nerves.</p><p>“Yeah, if you’d gotten ready earlier,” she said, sliding across the backseat. “Hey, man,” she called to the driver. “Just a short trip, sorry.”</p><p>“No worries,” he said.</p><p>I was suddenly furious. “It’s not like you were ready that much earlier than I was.” I imagined Patsy steaming her linen suit the night before, choosing her necklace and earrings. Amelia had already sweated through her floral button-down. “We’re going to look like idiots. We’re way too old to be doing this.”</p><p>“Stop calling us old all the time! You’ve got a lot of decades left to live, so I wouldn’t advise cutting out fun at 33.”</p><p>Our driver dropped us in a mostly residential area with houses I didn’t remember ever seeing before. Camden was dense and always changing, and we spent most of our time at the restaurants and coffee shops of the more populous streets. But you didn’t have to walk far to find a quiet street lined with posh houses and old-growth oaks. The restaurant was in a sparsely-decorated former warehouse with polished wood floors and windowpanes set with thick-ribbed glass that distorted the view inside or outside.</p><p>The restaurant focused on artisanal foods that the chef had eaten growing up on a farm in the United States: bubbling casseroles, smothered ribs, shimmering globes of marshmallow jellos, all done up fancy. I was totally right about the clientele who’d be there: skinny-armed waifs of both or neither gender, androgynes in rose-colored glasses, leather twinks tied up with studs. But those were only a fraction of the clientele: older gays were the focus of the evening in their expensive black turtlenecks, chiffon button-downs, short hair and expensive glasses, well-chosen silver rings. I longed to sit with them.</p><p>“We’re underdressed,” I hissed to Amelia. “Let’s just go.”</p><p>“We look fine.” Amelia was always sure that whatever she’d done was right, whatever she’d done was enough. I shouldn’t be the only one left to consider if we’d totally made fools of ourselves. She leaned over and whispered, “Just be cool. I’m sick of you being so judgmental. This is a space for everyone.”</p><p>Space, space, space! People were always talking about space and who it was for and who belonged inside it. I wanted my own space, but all I had was a little closet in our condo with a blanket that I told Amelia I used to meditate. Really, all I was doing was taking secret naps.</p><p>I was about to tell her that I was going to walk home when Grizz and their friend came over to us. Grizz grabbed Amelia’s neck and gave her a long kiss.</p><p>“Jesus,” I said to no one.</p><p>The friend squealed, “So cute!” Then they stuck out their hand and said, “I’m Astral!”</p><p>“Astrid?”</p><p>“Astral.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s pretty.”</p><p>“Thanks! I chose it myself.” The person paused. “And you are?”</p><p>“Delia.” I grimaced, glancing over at the older gays in black. I wanted to talk with them about mortgages and their kids in college.</p><p>“So old-fashioned!" Astral said. "Did you pick it yourself?"</p><p>"No," I said. </p><p>"Shall we sit?” Astral asked, nonplussed.</p><p>I sat, glancing back at Amelia and Grizz holding hands and giggling together. I wasn’t sure if it was evolved or pathetic that I wasn’t jealous.</p><p>“They’re cute, aren’t they?” Astral said.</p><p>Grizz was a beautiful person, all long limbs and dark eyebrows. Amelia had told me their parents were rich doctors originally from India.  </p><p>“Yeah,” I agreed sincerely. Amelia and Grizz really looked like they were in love. Were they? I wasn’t sure how to feel. I assumed I’d want to fight for Amelia to pay attention to me, but I didn’t. Did I love her more because I wanted her to be happy, or did I love myself less?</p><p>“How do you know Amelia?” Astral asked.</p><p>I paused, scoffed. “She’s my wife.”</p><p>“Oh!” they laughed. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”</p><p>“Staggering, I'm sure.” </p><p>“I mean…” She tipped her head towards them, whispering to each other across the table and softly laughed.</p><p>I shrugged, trying to convey that I was far too mature for jealousy, which, oddly, it seemed that I was. “How do you know Grizz?”</p><p>“We met through Craiglist. I’m their roommate, and we all hang out together sometimes and play board games.”</p><p>“Board games?”</p><p>“Sure. Settlers of Catan mostly. With cheap rosé of course!”</p><p>That kind of hurt my feelings. I imagined that Amelia and Grizz were having swinging sex in Grizz’s rope dungeon, not playing board games and drinking wine. </p><p>Amelia sat next to me and Grizz sat across from her. I didn’t know how we were supposed to navigate this seating, and I was jealous of straight people and their never-shifting geographies. They didn’t have to deal with negotiations of expectations, of new flirtations: men grilled steaks and women did laundry. Cheating was cheating.</p><p>Suddenly, Grizz clasped my hand across the table. “Delia, it’s nice to see you again.” Today, they were wearing red lipstick and a baseball cap, their hair grown out into a mullet.</p><p>“You too, Grizz,” I squeezed back and then dropped their hand to pick up the menu. “I’m really hungry, aren’t you?”</p><p>I’d read in the paper that the restaurant was trying to get funding for a permanent location, so they put on a couple of these pop-up dinners a year. It had been three years, but it seemed like they still didn’t have enough money, or enough commitment, to put down roots. Camden was expensive, and the restaurant was going to be called Too Telescopic Eyes, a quote from an Emily Dickinson poem that everybody pretended to recognize when they read it on the back of the menu.</p><p>“Good evening,” a fresh-faced waitress came to our table. “I’m Holly, and I’m going to be taking care of you tonight. Can I bring you all something to drink?”</p><p>Amelia didn’t look up from the menu and said, “We’ll have that Napa cab, four glasses.” She peeked up at the waitress. “Thanks.”</p><p>“Great choice.”</p><p>I looked at the price - nearly £200 a bottle. “Very generous,” I said, feeling like my mother who always disapproved of the things my father brought home: food processors, a lawn mower, once even a Ragdoll cat. The Busby women were experts in passive aggression; they would never tell you what was bothering them, you had to figure it out.</p><p>“These two are poor students!” Amelia grinned.</p><p>“Thanks, Amelia!” Grizz and Astral said in unison.</p><p>“I was going to order a cocktail, but wine will be OK,” I said.</p><p>The younger people studied their menus intensely.  </p><p>“Hon,” Amelia said, “It’s a bit crowded in here. Will you take a breath of fresh air with me outside?”</p><p>It was more embarrassing not to say yes.</p><p>“Be right back,” I smiled to Grizz and Astral.</p><p>When we were outside, Amelia paced down the block. “Can you try to be civil to me in there?”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“You’ve had a stick up your ass with me for weeks.”</p><p>“You’ve just been getting on my nerves!”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I can’t help it. I’m not <em>choosing</em> to find you aggravating.”</p><p>Amelia sighed and put her hands on her hips, like she was dealing with an annoying child.</p><p>“What?” I pushed. “You trained me to be more honest. Because I was so helplessly <em>rural</em>.”</p><p>“Maybe I underestimated how difficult it would be for you to spend time with Grizz. Maybe this is my fault. I just thought we were all grown up enough to be friends.”</p><p>“Oh, come off of it, Princess Ethics! Let me order my damn cocktail in peace.”</p><p>“Grizz is handling this a lot better than you are.”</p><p>“Maybe because they’re not your wife!” I went back inside, letting the door slam on Amelia’s face. I made it back to the table before she did. “Sorry, you guys, Amelia just gets a little claustrophobic in tight spaces.”</p><p> “I didn’t know that,” Grizz said.</p><p>“There are lots of things you don’t know about Amelia,” I said. “Just so many, many things.”</p><p>Grizz looked wounded. I was being an asshole, though they didn’t deserve it.</p><p>The waitress returned with our wine and glasses, and the six dishes Amelia had ordered. “All to share,” Amelia said, gesturing in a circle. Amelia was so gracious and thoughtful, she was making me tired.</p><p>Was I trying to think the worst of her to justify my obsession with Patsy?</p><p>I was feeling so snarky and gross that I just wanted to leave. I knew that I’d never be able to pull myself together and make these people like me. I’d probably have to see Grizz again at some point in my life, too, so I knew I should be behaving better. I poured a big glass of wine and tried to sit there civilly.</p><p>They were talking about some movie that I hadn’t seen but apparently Amelia had. I used to know everything Amelia did everyday, everything she thought about. I wasn’t sure when she’d stopped telling me parts of her life, or when I stopped wanting to know them. She’d tell me about her co-workers or something hard she was supposed to do at work, and then we’d order in take-out and watch something on Netflix. We’d stopped knowing those little details about each other a long time ago.</p><p>Had I ever really been interested in what she’d had for lunch?</p><p>I tried to follow the discussion. “And the soundtrack is so good,” Grizz was saying. “It’s like really ‘80s, I mean it’s set in the ‘80’s, so it makes sense, and my mom was having all these nostalgic memories—”</p><p>“Was your mom a kid in the 80s?” I asked.</p><p>Grizz paused and looked at me strangely, probably because I hadn’t said anything at all about the movie. “Yeah, she was born in 1971.”</p><p>“And when were you born, Grizz?”</p><p>They paused, looked at me blankly. “1999.”</p><p>I turned to Amelia, unable to quash my rage. Amelia was ridiculous, and she was making me ridiculous by proxy. “And when were you born, Amelia?”</p><p>Amelia sucked her teeth like she wanted me out of sight. “1985," she said softly. </p><p>“Oh my god, you’re right in the middle!”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Astral asked.</p><p>“Amelia’s exactly 14 years between Grizz and their mom! She could date either of them! She could date <em>both</em> of them!”</p><p>“What’s wrong with you?” Amelia hissed.</p><p>“I’m just stating the facts,” I said, throwing down my napkin and hurrying to the bathroom. Inside, I pulled down toilet paper to cover the seat and sank down. The paper was going to stick to my sweaty legs, but I didn’t care.</p><p>Amelia had been the one stable thing in my life for over a decade, and now I didn’t even <em>like</em> her anymore. When had that happened? Had Patsy changed my reality or confirmed it? I woke up most days with social media notifications telling me to follow my dreams, but I couldn’t think of a single one that felt individual or authentic to me. My only dream was a weekend getaway with Patsy Mount.</p><p>I wiped my greasy face down with a paper towel and hurried out with the intention of asking Grizz what they wanted to be after they finished college. I knew they’d have an impactful story, and I wanted to hear it make myself feel even worse. </p><p> </p><p><br/>When I hurried out of the bathroom, though, there was Patsy, sitting across from a grey-haired man and a twenty-something kid with a goatee.</p><p>“Oh god,” I said, wishing I’d either had more wine or less. I shouldn’t have said anything, then she wouldn’t have noticed me.</p><p>But she couldn’t ignore me now, so she swanned up from her chair to kiss me on both cheeks, like playtime French people. “Delia!” she exclaimed.</p><p>I swallowed hard, my heart beating so furiously she might have felt it as she held my shoulders.</p><p>“This is my husband Tomas and my son Mateo," she said, gesturing to them. </p><p>Shit, I thought, looking at the attractive men. Her family was so good-looking that they probably had linen napkins on their solid-maple dining table. What could she have ever wanted with me? I understood finally; she’d wanted novelty, just as Amelia had with Grizz. Something not quite as good, but different. That was why she hadn't given me a real way to contact her.</p><p>I didn’t want to embarrass Patsy, who, despite the situation, looked calmer than I felt. “Hello,” I said, stretching my arm out to shake the men’s hands. “I’m Delia.”</p><p>“Hi,” Tomas said, his gaze noncommittal, disinterested.</p><p>I looked at Patsy expectantly, wondering what she’d say about me in introduction. I paused, glanced at her. She didn’t introduce me. I stood there a beat longer. Was she going to tell them how she knew me, like a sane person would?</p><p>My face heated, and I said a gulped, “Bye” and returned to my table. What was Patsy doing here, at a restaurant by queers, for queers? She wasn’t really one of us. She didn’t have to navigate all the difficult, annoying things we did. Like she’d said, nobody even knew she was bisexual.</p><p>I was really going to cry now, and it was definitely going to be embarrassing. Grizz and Astral wouldn’t understand. These Gen Z kids always pretended to be crying on Instagram, but they didn’t really have any feelings. They’d stare at me, the gawping schmuck, as foreign to them as the older gays in their black turtlenecks across the room were to me.</p><p>I wasn’t going to let Patsy see me cry. I wasn’t going to let Amelia see me cry. I was going to behave appropriately so that both Astral and Grizz would see me as a mature person whom they could look to for guidance. I glanced at Patsy, but she wasn’t even looking in my direction.</p><p>Grizz took my hand. “I know this is hard, Delia. It’s hard for me too.”</p><p>I looked at them, surprised. “What’s hard?”</p><p>They gestured back and forth. “This. Sharing the same woman.”</p><p>Was this really the tactic they were going to use? I couldn’t be civil. “We’re not really sharing her, Grizz. I have her almost all of the time.”</p><p>“Delia!” Amelia said.</p><p>“Well, whatever it is we’re doing. It’s real, it’s natural, but it’s hard. It’s irrational for anyone to think you two could stay monogamous for as long as you did. Twelve years!” Grizz leaned back and hit their hands on the table.</p><p>“Your generation gets it, Grizz. I really admire that,” Amelia said.</p><p>“Thanks.” Grizz looked at me sincerely. “My being with Amelia doesn’t make her love you any less, Delia. Does it, Amelia?”</p><p>“No,” Amelia agreed.</p><p>I felt like they were my parents, telling me that they were divorcing me, their pre-pubescent child.</p><p>“And Amelia loving you, Delia, doesn’t mean that she can’t love me, does it?” Grizz continued.</p><p>“No,” Amelia said, swinging in to kiss Grizz on the lips. “You’re amazing.”</p><p>I paused, dumbfounded. Love? Amelia hadn’t told me she<em> loved</em> Grizz. That wasn’t part of the plan; she wasn’t supposed to develop feelings. Surely, someone couldn’t be in love with two people at once. “Love you?” I said to Grizz. I turned to look at Amelia, who was staring into Grizz’s eyes. “You love them?”</p><p>I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself from crying, like a weakling, like a freak. This was life now, the life I’d created: my wife and her lover and my ambivalent matriarch and her husband all in the same room. It was too much.</p><p>I wasn’t open-minded enough for this. Amelia loved Grizz. And Patsy hadn’t even glanced my way. “I can’t do this,” I said, standing up and drinking the last swig of my wine. I walked to the door, hoping Amelia wouldn’t follow me. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>I was down the block and had half-finished composing a message to Amelia that read: “please stay with Grizz tonight” – when someone touched me on the back. I jumped. I thought it would be Amelia, and I didn’t want her to see me crying until we could cry together, alone in our place, so I wiped my face and turned around.</p><p>It was Patsy. "Hi," she breathed. </p><p>"You scared me. Woman walking alone at night and all that." I wiped at the mascara I imagined was under my eyes, pretending to be city-wise and hardened. </p><p>"Sorry, I just...you haven't called." </p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>"My card." </p><p>"The one with your <em>office</em> number on it?" </p><p>"No one's around. It's summer." </p><p>"You sure think I'm brave." </p><p>"I really wanted you to call." </p><p>We were still standing there on the street. A group of drunk tech bros took over the whole sidewalk, pushing us onto a thin strip of grass. I glanced at my phone and pushed send on the text to Amelia. I hoped she'd stay with Grizz tonight. "Let's walk." </p><p>"I can't," Patsy said. "I just rushed out on my hus-" </p><p>"You rushed out?" I felt a whoosh of sentiment, of power. </p><p>"Yeah," she took my hand and then dropped it. "I really want to see you again." </p><p>She didn’t have her purse with her, so I fished in my bag for the book I was reading and a pen. I tore out the front cover of <em>The Well of Loneliness</em>, which was embarrassingly on the nose for my life, and ripped out the dedication page - "Dedicated to our three selves." Even more embarrassing. I scribbled my phone number on the page. </p><p>Patsy took the paper and read the dedication. She looked up at me like I'd given it to her with purpose, like I'd been carrying it around in preparation for this very moment. "I’ll call," she said, her eyes wide and mournful. She took up my hand again, dropped it, and turned to half-jog back to the restaurant. Somehow, she still managed to look sexy. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Delia faces the aftermath of her wife telling her she is in love with someone else. Patsy promises to text Delia - but will she keep her word?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On my walk home, Amelia texted me a horrible "K" in response to what I'd sent her. It was terrible when she behaved like this, when she was just as responsible for an argument but put all the blame on me. I didn't think I <em>had</em> to come around to Amelia and Grizz immediately. It was cruel of my wife not to tell me she'd fallen in love. They shouldn't have put me in such a vulnerable position in public. Amelia was a careful person; how could she treat me like this?</p><p>The answer was clear: she was in infatuated.</p><p>Well, I was infatuated, too. I wasn't going to wait for Patsy to text me. I was going to order Thai food and watch Michael Scott like I should have in the first place. When I put down the phone with our usual place, I realized the delivery was more expensive than I’d really thought about before. It was the same price but so much more expensive. How would I afford my lifestyle if Amelia and I split up. Would I be able to get enough money in the alimony to rent an apartment by myself?</p><p>But the prospect of life without Amelia in it still seemed impossible. I couldn’t believe this was the end; I didn’t think Amelia and I ever <em>would</em> end. She and I had been through so much together, so many terrible fights, but we still kept choosing each other, out of love or fear or obligation. But now Amelia had a reason not to make amends. Marriage meant something to her, I knew, I meant something to her, too, but obligation wasn’t the most enticing option if she could choose something else.</p><p>Besides, maybe I was underestimating what she'd found with Grizz.</p><p>A bottle-and-a-half into Amelia's cache of expensive Robert Mondavi Cabernet Reserve, which really didn't taste any better to me than a $20 bottle, my phone dinged with a text. I paused my show and breathed a sigh of relief, sure that Amelia was texting me to apologize. Though that apology wouldn't change the fact that she loved someone <em>in addition</em> to me, or perhaps<em> instead</em> of me.</p><p>The text was from Patsy. "Hi," it read.</p><p>I waited. Was this really all she was going to write? Such a romantic. She wasn’t brave enough to write more than a barebones greeting and expect me to do all the work. Even so, my heart was beating so fast that I had to put down the phone so I didn’t drop it.</p><p>I made myself wait to text her back. I had to make her think I was busy, that I was with Amelia, a successful and attractive person, like Patsy was busy with her hot husband and soon-to-be Oxford graduate son. I watched the rest of the episode, seeing if my phone would flicker with another text from Patsy. It didn't.</p><p>I texted her back. I wasn’t going to give much. “How are you?”</p><p>The three dots loaded quickly. “Fine! How are you?”</p><p>This woman was really something. Sure, she’d run after me at the restaurant, but she was still holding all the cards.</p><p>“Fine!” It was like texting with my mother, who always exchanged a string of pleasantries before she’d actually tell me what she wanted.</p><p>“Did you make it home safely?” she wrote.</p><p>I rolled my eyes. <em>Was </em>this my mother? Mom was a only decade older than Patsy, closer to her age than I was. </p><p>"I just had to walk a few blocks!" The exclamation point, the cowardly exclamation point. "Did you make it home?"</p><p>"Driving now," she texted.</p><p>She was in the car? Her husband must have been at the wheel, and her son was probably in the back."Just wanted to let you know that I have your number! I can read your handwriting!" she texted.</p><p>I chuckled. She'd been so brash the other night, but now she was shy. "I'm glad,’ I wrote.</p><p>"And I'm going to use it! You don't have to call me at the office. That was stupid. I wasn't thinking, I was just...excited."</p><p>My throat dropped. She meant she'd been excited about our night together. But I was still disturbed. It didn’t seem that Patsy’s husband knew what she was doing with me. She'd <em>cheated</em> on him, and now she was rubbing it in, sitting only a few feet away as she texted me.</p><p>My nerves were percolating, for her, for myself, so I wrote, "Listen, Patsy, Amelia just walked in," I lied. "Can I text you later?"</p><p>"Sure," she wrote, "Please do!"</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Amelia didn't text me all evening, and I fell asleep on the couch, drunk off of too many glasses of wine. She didn't even respond to my text. I woke up in the middle of the night and checked my phone, sure that she would have written me. My phone didn't have any new messages.</p><p>The next morning, I was scheduled to open the bookstore at 10am. I was lucky, I told myself, lots of people voluntarily spent their time at River Thames, and I was paid to be there. Lots of people had terrible commutes, but I could walk to work. I might not have a "kick-ass career," which was what Amelia said about her upwards trajectory, but people were probably jealous of me anyway.</p><p>I washed my face and brushed my teeth, though I felt too tired from the night before to put on makeup. I went to the coffee shop on the corner for a bagel and a latte, even though we had both of these things in the condo. Amelia had insisted on buying an expensive espresso machine, a device that Grizz certainly would have thought “fed the capitalist machine.” I wondered what Grizz would have thought of our place; I wondered if Grizz had ever <em>been</em> to our place.</p><p>I didn't want to see Amelia, especially not before I was slated to work for eight hours. She'd probably arrive back at the condo and want to talk, even if I only had 20 minutes before my shift. I was serious about my work, too. I didn’t bother her with trivial tasks in the mornings before she had to go to the office, while she was centering herself on a yoga mat in the middle of our living room, but she didn’t extend the same courtesy to me. I vividly recalled her asking me to pick up more trash bags on my way to work just last week. </p><p><em>How long have I hated my wife?</em> The thought flashed into my head when it was my turn to order, and I chose a chocolate croissant instead of the bagel I'd planned on. It was richer and more decadent.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Work that day was busy. I was at the reference desk for most of the morning, and customers kept asking me for recommendations for books similar to ones I hadn't read.</p><p>"Do you know of any female-driven, mystery novels set here?" an older woman asked me around noon, pleasantly enough.</p><p>"Hm," I said, logging onto my computer. "On Goodreads, they say you should try <em>The Girl on the Train</em>."</p><p>"I've obviously already read that one!" she said with more perturbation than the situation warranted. "Anything else?"</p><p>"That's not my genre, I'm afraid," I told her.</p><p>"Why don't I just go online?" she left without a thank-you, and moved to my more bookish colleague, Ricky, who was manning the other computer station. "Do you know of any female-driven,  mystery novels set here?" she asked him.</p><p>I rolled my eyes and went to eat my lunch in the break room. As I was finishing my sandwich, Ricky came in for a cup of coffee. "What'd you recommend to that old woman?" I asked.</p><p>“Who?”</p><p>“The cranky one.”</p><p>"<em>Fingersmith</em> by Sarah Waters."</p><p>I almost chocked on my yogurt. "Are you serious?" The book was a lesbian love story set in the 1890s, with some pretty salacious sex scenes.</p><p>"Yeah, it's unusual, not predictable. A surprise ending. Have you read it?"</p><p>"Of course," I stared, surprised that someone like him - a gay man wearing cut-off shorts and an ironic baseball cap - had read and recommended it.</p><p>"Why ‘of course’?"</p><p>"It's like a lesbian classic."</p><p>"So?"</p><p>"I'm gay.” Nobody I knew used the word “lesbian,” like it was graphic or old-fashioned. I felt bad about this. </p><p>"Really?" he shrugged, pouring as much sugar into his coffee as a twenty-something could.</p><p>"She’s going to be horrified."</p><p>"Titillated.” He winked. “Get it?”</p><p>I nodded.</p><p>He left the room with his coffee, which wasn’t allowed, but he was hot enough that Seungjae wouldn’t call him on it.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When my thirty minutes were up, I headed to the front desk to check people out for the last four hours of my shift. We rotated, so no one would get bored. An hour passed of me ringing up people's books and stamping their rewards cards when suddenly, Patsy interrupted.</p><p>"Hi," she said, the exact single word she’d used to initiate our texts the night before, leaning onto the register.</p><p>"Patsy," I whispered. One of Seungjae’s only rules was that friends couldn't visit during a shift. "Are you buying something?"</p><p>"No." She looked around a little frantically.</p><p>"Then I can't talk right now." The line behind her was long. "We’re really busy."</p><p>She grabbed a book from under the counter, texts with bright front covers that we put there so people would buy them impulsively. It was <em>Little Birds: Erotica</em> by Anais Nin.</p><p>I picked up the book and turned the cover around to face her. "You've been wanting to read this?"</p><p>"Yes,” she smirked.</p><p>"Would you like to pay for it?"</p><p>"Oh!" she fumbled for her purse. "Yes."</p><p>Seungjae, working the register next to me, gave me the side-eye. I shrugged, like I wasn't sure why this person was having such a struggle paying for her book.</p><p>"When do you get off?" she whispered.</p><p>"I wish you'd just texted me instead." I took the credit card she held out to me.</p><p>"Sorry."</p><p>"I care about this job."</p><p>"I know you do."</p><p>"An hour-and-a-half," I looked down at her, and she was looking up at me with such hope, my stomach seized. "Can you wait?"</p><p>"I have a book, don't I?"</p><p>I nodded. "Do you have a punch card?"</p><p>“You know I do.” The wink she gave me with the card just about knocked me to the floor. I gave her another stamp.</p><p>"Would you like a bag?"</p><p>"No, I'm just going to read this over there." She pointed to the coffee shop. I hoped she wouldn't sit in my line of vision, or I'd be terribly distracted.</p><p>I nodded, tongue-tied.</p><p>She half-saluted and headed to the coffee shop in the back.</p><p>I turned to Seungjae to save face, though my heart was beating so fast I knew I wouldn’t say anything that made sense. "Slowest customer ever," I said, rolling my eyes.</p><p>“Lucky you.” He raised an eyebrow at me; a lot of old ladies still stopped to write checks.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Patsy was sitting in the coffee shop in the back when my shift ended. I wanted to skip over to her, but I needed to retain my composure. I couldn't let her think she’d influenced me.</p><p>"Any good?" I asked. I didn't remember how to flirt, or play coy, but it was fun to be on the chase again.</p><p>Patsy looked up from the Nin. "She's a terrible writer."</p><p>I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. "That's not the point."</p><p>"You’re right." I could see how playful she’d be if she wasn’t so nervous. I was flattered; I made her nervous. She smoothed the cover with her hand, like she couldn't bear to have anyone see it, then stuffed it into her purse.</p><p>"Did you come here to buy that book or-"</p><p>"Of course not." Patsy swatted away that idea, rolling her eyes. She looked to her left and right, then leaned closer toward me. "I'm here to see you." She was nervous someone would recognize her. I knew it wasn't feminist or sex-positive to like this down-low anxiety, this need to hide from the world, but I did. It was exciting. It reminded me of how the only girl I dated before Amelia and I would have sex quickly, as quietly as possible, before her roommate got back to their dorm room.</p><p>I wasn't going to budge, though. I liked seeing Patsy like this uncomfortable. She was the powerful one, older, more accomplished, but here she was, on my turf. "About what, Patsy? A book recommendation?"</p><p>She laughed. "God, you're cruel."</p><p>I stopped fake-world flirting, remembering last night, when our two realities collided. "You are! You didn't even try to <em>lie</em> about how you knew me last night." I leaned closer to her. “That was mortifying.” </p><p>"I was too surprised!"</p><p>"Come on, you were that shocked to see me at a restaurant 10 blocks from my house?"</p><p>"I was!"</p><p>"And you just decided to try that pop-up?"</p><p>She paused. "I might have thought it was possible you’d be there." She couldn't look at me and swirled her stir stick in her mostly-empty Americano.</p><p>“But you brought your husband?”</p><p>“I always have to bring him.”</p><p>“Ah.”</p><p>"Anyway, you said you'd text me again last night, but you didn't. I thought maybe I'd done something wrong, so..."</p><p>I sighed. She'd made a few mistakes, I supposed, but I was infatuated enough to ignore them. "You didn't do anything wrong,” I said. “I just couldn't text you because...my wife and I had a bad fight."</p><p>"I'm sorry," Patsy said, with a little smirk on her face.</p><p>"Does that make you happy?" I wasn't mad; she was jealous, or something like it. I grinned.</p><p>"No, it's not that. I was just...surprised to see what Amelia looked like."</p><p>I blushed. I knew that Amelia wasn't the best-looking person, especially not conventionally, and I cared too much about what our association said about me. I didn’t want to feel this way, but I did. I wished that everyone found Amelia attractive because it would make me more attractive, too. "What’d you think she'd look like?"</p><p>"She seems younger than you, childish."</p><p>Other people, straight people like my mother, could never understand Amelia's appeal, but as a queer person, Patsy was supposed to get it. I couldn't even say anything back, either, because her husband could have starred in an expensive watch commercial. "She's two years older."</p><p>"It's not that there's anything wrong with her, she just isn't the kind of person I thought you'd like."</p><p>“Damn.” I swallowed, offended for my wife. “She’s butch, right?"</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>"And you're not butch."</p><p>"I don't think so."</p><p>"People change, Patsy; don't you think? People like more than one thing, can’t they? You’re the case in point for that. Bisexuals are so case in point for that. I look nothing like your husband, do I?"</p><p>I was annoyed. I looked even less like her husband. But was I really annoyed with Patsy?  I wasn’t sure. My wife, Patsy, me, we'd all hedged our bets but then started letting the world change us. Infatuations, half-truths, love - things we could have stopped but didn’t. Life had happened to us, and we’d let it. When had Amelia decided she could fall in love with Grizz? When she’d started feeling that way, shouldn’t she have walked away?</p><p>“No, you look nothing like my husband,” Patsy shook her head. “I’ve just always assumed that bisexuals appreciated novelty in a way that lesbians don’t.”</p><p>I laughed. “That’s ridiculous. Anyway, maybe I like Amelia’s other qualities. Maybe her other qualities make me stick around. People marry terrible-looking people - not that Amelia is unattractive - because of their other qualities, like kindness and compassion. Or money.” I laughed, and Patsy smiled. I wasn’t sure why I’d added that last caveat, and I wasn’t sure why I wanted her to understand me, when she’d just been cruel to my wife and dismissive of my taste. “Everyone changes, but that's what marriage is about, sticking around while your spouse gets fat or wears sloppy clothes or cuts their hair weird or whatever."</p><p>"I’m sorry. I just want to know that you find me attractive." Patsy put her hand over mine with only a tiny glance over her shoulder.</p><p>“I do.” I didn’t feel comfortable enough telling her that I was only drawn to women who looked like her these days - middle-aged, tall, feminine. I couldn’t remember the last butch or androgynous woman I found attractive, and that wasn’t out of lack of trying. You can’t help what your preferences are, though I’d tried my hardest to hang on to how wild I’d been about Amelia. It would be too much to tell Patsy she was exactly what I’d been looking for.</p><p> "My husband's favorite board game is Jenga,” Patsy said.</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“I don’t love that about him, but I tolerate it,” she smirked.</p><p>"See?" I laughed. She was making a joke, and not a bad one.</p><p>She lowered her voice. “When can I see you again?” she asked, pulling back her hand.</p><p>“You’re seeing me now.”</p><p>“Again?”</p><p>Seungjae walked towards the cookbook section next to the coffee shop and spotted me there. It wasn’t a rule that we couldn’t meet friends there after our shifts ended, but Seungjae made it clear that he didn’t like us lingering after our shifts ended. He was too stuck up; it confused him if there were any blurred lines between business and pleasure. That was clear - he raised an eyebrow at me, like, <em>Who is this woman?</em> Patsy saw him, and I could tell his scrutiny made her sit up straighter.</p><p>That made me a little sad - the connection we had shouldn’t be salacious, it shouldn’t be forbidden. I looked at her with a sad smile. We didn’t have to battle each other for dominance, to decide who’d made the better choices or created the best life. We could be on the same side. “That’s my boss,” I said softly. “He doesn’t like it when we hang out in the store.”</p><p>“Let’s go somewhere else, then,” she suggested.</p><p>I nodded, and she bussed her plate and mug. We walked out of the shop, elbow to elbow, neither one of us taking the lead, grinning at each other like we were school children finally getting the treats we’d wanted. I wanted to ask her what time she needed to get home but stopped myself. I didn’t have anyone to tell when I’d be back.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Patsy has asked Delia to take her somewhere, anywhere, in her neighborhood. Though she regrets her choice almost immediately, Delia chooses the women's spa.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you guys for reading! I'm enjoying having something to write during my third week of quarantine. Hope you're all hanging in there, too.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I took Patsy to the women’s spa, where I’d been only once before. Men weren’t allowed, and maybe that was something I wanted her to do - be without men. Tell me how much easier life without men, something straight women told me all the time. But she didn’t say anything like that when we each paid for ourselves - it cost more than I’d remembered because Amelia had paid for me before - and felt the whoosh of perspiration and tropical scent from the door into the spa. </p><p>It was the wrong move to bring her here. I’d only been here once, with a friend of Amelia’s I barely knew. I didn’t know my way around. But Patsy seemed unfazed and welcome, like she could have been comfortable anywhere. She could be anywhere and feel like she was supposed to be there. I rarely felt accepted and wanted  even less. Then we were in the locker room with our two-dollar rental towels and older women with their pendulous breasts. Was Patsy going to cover herself when we went into the pools, into the sauna? I hoped she would, or I’d feel like I didn’t know her at all. </p><p>I took off my clothes, shyly, and wished I had a bathing suit, what I’d worn before. When Patsy had asked me for a date, I’d been impulsive and excited, and that, like always, had gotten me into trouble.  I wrapped myself in the towel, which, mercifully, was longer than one you’d wear in the shower. “We don’t have do this,” I whispered to Patsy. “I’m sorry. We can go.” </p><p>“What do you mean?” she asked, peeling off her shirt. </p><p>“Oy,” I said turning around to face the showers. She wasn’t wearing anything black lace or salacious, but I didn’t want to look at her and have others look at her in public. What did it mean for a woman to lust for another woman? Could she ever want without objectification? Was her desire really more ethical than a man’s? If Patsy took off her bra, I wouldn’t try to look. Maybe that was the difference.</p><p>When I turned to look her after too long, she was fully covered in the towel. “Erotica and saunas, I never would have expected that today,” she winked, leading us towards the sauna. It was almost empty, except for two women wilting in the back. Inside, it was so hot that I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I’d made a huge mistake bringing Patsy here. She was on my turf, in my neighborhood, but I still hadn’t taken her somewhere where I had the upper hand. Patsy picked up the ladle from the pitcher of water near the steam stove and pitched it onto the coals. The other women in the room didn’t stir. I’d only been to a sauna a few times, and I didn’t remember you were supposed to do that. Patsy even knew <em>saunas</em> better than I did. </p><p>By the time we settled onto the warm, fragrant bench, I was both in awe of and angry with Patsy. She tipped her head back against the bench, like she was already comfortable. Like it was nothing to make herself at home in this new place. I wanted to confront her, show her I was in control. </p><p>“I know why you were so weird about seeing me last night, at the restaurant,” I said. “It’s because your husband doesn’t know that you’re seeing me.” </p><p>“I’m not seeing you,” Patsy smirked, her eyes still closed. “You didn’t even ring me back.” </p><p>“Patsy.” </p><p>“Of course you’re right. How would you have introduced me to Amelia?” </p><p>“I don’t know,” I shook my head. </p><p>“See? It’s not easy to lie to your partner.” </p><p>“I’m not lying to her,” I said, though of course I was but not in the same way she was lying to her husband. “I know you think we’re both cheating on our spouses together, but I’m not.” I lowered my voice even more when one of the women at the end of the sauna shifted. “Amelia and I have an open relationship. In fact, that dinner last night was with her new, I don’t know what to call them, <em>lover</em>.” I shuddered a little at the word.</p><p>“Which one?” </p><p>“The one with the mullet, next to her.” </p><p>“I couldn’t see anyone but you.” She lifted her head to smirk. </p><p>I laughed, despite myself. “Thanks, but their back was to you.” </p><p>Patsy paused, clearly thinking about what I’d told her. “Amelia and you. You and Amelia-”</p><p>“Yes.” </p><p>“Oh.” Patsy gathered her sweater more tightly around her shoulders. “I didn’t realize.” </p><p>“Yeah.” This honesty was making me a little nauseous. It was easier do something wrong if someone else was doing it too, but Patsy had just learned she was the only one cheating. I wasn’t stepping out without Amelia’s permission. I should have explained my arrangement earlier, I supposed, but at this point, all we’d done was kiss and sit at a table together and sit half-naked in towels at a public spa. Patsy’s relationship with Tomas had nothing to do with me, not really. She was in her marriage; I wasn’t. </p><p>The other women in the sauna left, and we were in there together. Patsy was sitting too rigidly on the bench now, and I wondered why I’d wanted to make her uncomfortable. I should have been glad she’d felt comfortable here; I shouldn’t have wanted to make her cower in fear of the situation. What did that say about me, that I wanted to put the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about into distress?</p><p>“Tomas can’t know about us,” Patsy said. “Please, please, please don’t tell him.” </p><p>“Why would I tell him? Tell him what?” </p><p>“He’s very sensitive. This would crush him. The thought would never even cross his mind that I...” She looked off across the restaurant. “This makes me feel worse.” </p><p>“I don’t want to lie, Patsy.”</p><p>“No, of course not.”</p><p>“I used to lie all the time in my twenties, and I kept messing up what I’d told people.” </p><p>“You’ll never have to talk to him, so you won’t have to lie,” she snapped. </p><p>“No, I mean, I wanted to tell you the truth. Stop lying by omission to you.”</p><p>Patsy couldn’t meet my eyes. “I feel pretty terrible now.” </p><p>I sighed. “Sorry, but the situation hasn’t changed.” </p><p>She looked up at me, surprised. I put my hand over hers, but she sucked it back. I didn’t want to make her feel bad. I hadn’t told her the truth to be cruel, or at least I didn’t think so. Perhaps there was ego involved, and I wanted to show her that I was more evolved than she was. I could make a novel life for myself. What a difference two decades makes in what people could negotiate. But then I remembered that a belief in progressive society was a myth, too; Anais Nin was a bigamist with a husband on both coasts back in the 1930s. </p><p>“You’re not terrible, Patsy,” I tried again. “How many years were you faithful to him?” </p><p>She paused, looked up to the ceiling. A burst of steam fogged my clear view of her. She waited for a long, quiet moment. “Two or three?” </p><p>My stomach flipped. I’d thought I was her first... what? Crush? Dalliance? We hadn’t slept together, so I couldn’t call what we were doing an affair. She’d so confidently kissed me that night, the same night we’d ever had a real conversation, and I supposed that wasn’t something someone who’d been dedicated to the same person for the last 25 years would do. I should have recognized her prowess, her haste.</p><p>“Wow,” I said, though I knew that was the wrong thing. </p><p>“I know.” She licked her teeth. “Some of them have been one-night stands, people who I knew would be discrete. A couple of long-term affairs, a few months, a year. She asked me to leave Tomas, but that was when Mateo was still a child.” </p><p>I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I wondered if part of why Patsy was so appealing to me was because I thought she’d broken a promise for me, that our attraction was so intense that she couldn’t resist it, now, for the first time in decades. I thought that she’d been so hungry for me because she missed novelty, missed women. But all of that had been my fantasy. I decided to hurt her. “How have you had the time?” I asked.</p><p>It was a cruel, but not entirely an unfounded, question. I didn’t even have a high-powered job or a high-achieving son like she did, and I was still overwhelmed by the hours I had to cook and clean and go to the doctor. Besides, you had to give time to the romantic partner you already had. </p><p>It had been my question for Amelia when she’d first proposed opening our relationship. “Where the hell are you going to find the time for someone else?” I’d asked. “You don’t even have time to go to the dentist.” </p><p>But she’d found time. Turns out, you could find time for things you actually wanted to do.  </p><p>“You should have told me that you and Amelia had an open relationship right away,” Patsy said. She spoke too loudly, and I was embarrassed.</p><p>I didn’t owe her that. If she’d chosen me because she thought I was in the same situation I was, that wasn’t my concern. Maybe I’d just imagined our connection. “My relationship is none of your business,” I said. </p><p>“You’re just a liar, then.”</p><p>I almost laughed at how quickly things had escalated between us. My relationship with Amelia hadn’t been this intense in years, maybe ever. We nagged at each other almost constantly but rarely had this kind of explosive disagreement. </p><p>If Patsy weren’t leaving, I would appreciate her passion.  </p><p>But she was leaving. She stood and pulled her towel more tightly around herself. She held her arms around herself like they were going to protect her. She pulled open the sauna door. I was only a few steps behind her. She strode into the locker room and pulled her clothes from the locker. It was hard to look dignified holding up the towel and carrying the clothes, and even she couldn’t do it. She looked ridiculous, trying to look self-righteous in a rented towel. </p><p>She took her things into one of the bathroom stalls. I desperately wanted to be back in my clothes, too, so I opened my locker and took out my things. I banged into the stall next to hers, suddenly feeling exhausted, like I could barely keep my eyes open. “Come on, Patsy,” I said, my cheek pressed onto the moist divider between the stalls. It was so hot everywhere in this building, even out of the sauna. </p><p>I heard her knocking her elbows into the partition, pulling on her shirt. She was probably almost dressed. I pulled on my socks and underwear as quickly as I could. I was putting my shirt over my head when I heard her clatter out of the stall, her bare feet pad over the tiles. </p><p>The reality of what I’d done hit me then. I’d unloaded too much onto her because I was a cruel person. I couldn’t let her go. I might never see her again. I wanted to see her again, desperately. I was finally doing something outside of my ordinary life. “Patsy, wait,” I pleaded.</p><p>I unlatched the stall and followed her out to the lobby where we’d taken off our shoes. She’d worn slides so she barely lost any time putting them on. I pulled on my sneakers, hopping after her. </p><p>She kept walking, even stopping to smile cordially at the woman at the front desk. <br/>
“Stop, Patsy!” I hissed after her, quietly, so that no one would think we were anything to each other but friends. That was the way Patsy would want it. The counter woman looked up anyway, as I hurried after her. She was almost at the door, and then she was opening it without even a backwards glance. </p><p>I stopped, the door a barrier I couldn’t cross. I wasn’t going to chase Patsy down the street, calling her name. She’d been one for romantic gestures, kissing me on a public street, but I wasn’t that brave.</p><p>I hovered at the door, watching her walk down the street until she turned a corner. I’d thought she’d had all the power, with her success and her money and her socially-acceptable life. But I had a different kind of power - a power to make messes without consequences. I could do things sloppily, I could mess up. If I lost my job, I wouldn’t lose my career. I couldn’t upset my children. My marriage was already reliably porous. </p><p>I didn’t have much to lose being with Patsy as she did being with me. But I would have to deal with the fallout from my amorphous life all on my own. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Last time, Delia, whose marriage to Amelia is falling apart, insulted Patsy at the women's spa.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It's been over a month since I posted last! I've really been losing track of time in this quarantine, so whoa...But, I'm back with something new. </p>
<p>I was also a little stuck because I got some great advice that my version of Camden here was off quite a bit. The Camden in the story isn't the real one, though it sounds like a lovely place. Fic is strange because you can't really go back and change what you've started, so I'm just going to leave this off-kilter version of the city. I hope you'll forgive me for it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Patsy was safely down the street, I left the sauna. What else was I going to do? It was Saturday night; I suspected Amelia would be at home. We’d have to discuss things when we saw each other. I wasn’t ready to fight with Patsy, too, and I definitely wasn’t prepared to battle for her. </p>
<p>I didn’t want to go back to my flat. I just wanted to put off dealing with Amelia for as long as I could. I wasn't the kind of person with friends I could just call up and crash with if I couldn't go home. I had regimented relationships with my friends; we'd meet up for dinner or drinks once or twice a month. They'd tell me about their job promotions, and I'd ask them if they were really satisfied by no longer doing what they once did (painting, accounting, law). Though my boss Seungjae made me mad sometimes, he was the only person I knew besides my wife and mother who made me ponder tough decisions in my life. </p>
<p>But my semi-isolation meant I had nowhere to go besides a coffee shop or a restaurant or the movie theatre, and I didn't want to go to any of those places. I sighed and walked to home, not quite ready for the battle I’d have to have with Amelia when I returned. But when I turned my key and swung open the door, she wasn't there. I checked in the bathroom and my napping closet just in case. I was alone. How long could she hold this grudge? </p>
<p>Maybe she'd never come home. Maybe she'd just buy a five-day rotating series of button-downs and new sheets for the mattress Grizz kept on the floor of their place. I wondered if I'd feel relieved or unmoored without her. I suspected a combination of both. </p>
<p>I took out the stopper from the bottle of wine I'd started the night before, thinking again how ridiculous it was that I owned a product that took the air out of an uncorked bottle. It seemed absurd that I owned such useful tools, each with its own dedicated, specific purpose. I poured myself a half a glass; if Amelia came home, I didn't want her to think I was drinking because of her. It wasn't unusual to have a glass of wine at this time of day. After all, it was after 5 o'clock. </p>
<p>By nine, Amelia still wasn't home. I couldn't focus on watching a programme because I was too busy picturing what Amelia might be doing. Curled up around Grizz in their bed. Cooking some half-assed pasta dish in Grizz's second-hand pans. Explaining to Grizz about how needy and unambitious I was, too easily contented by what had presented itself in my life.</p>
<p>I wasn't jealous. I just felt exposed, like Grizz knew the private things about me that only Amelia was supposed to know. Like how I still slept with my baby blanket sometimes and got grumpy if I didn't eat something every three hours. Amelia could do whatever she wanted with Grizz as long as she didn't bring me into it. It was mortifying to be a silent third in their relationship, floating unseen but present in all of their conversations about the future. There had to be a next. I knew Amelia well enough to be sure of that.</p>
<p>I wasn't going to let her treat me this way. She couldn't just never come home again. She couldn’t be through with me so easily. </p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p><br/>
Desire should never be a force that uproots your life. I'd never desired anything except bodies and food. I'd never quested for power or prestige. I didn't fight for stability, or yearn for it, yet it found me, as it's wont to do. But stability isn’t enticing like ambition or love. There's never been anything in my life that’s made me want to blow up my stability like desire has. There's nothing that's made me behave irrationally. Even though I know these feelings for Patsy will never last, I know they’ll drive me to make stupid decisions, to behave embarrassingly. I wish I could become obsessed with something besides a woman.  </p>
<p>In those ways, Patsy and I are the same.</p>
<p>Amelia isn’t like this. She makes her choices with order, rationality. Though unconventional, Grizz gave her what she was missing. I didn’t think any of this is only about desire for her. She was lacking something in her life, and she made a measured decision to find it somewhere else. </p>
<p>Patsy surprised me. There was nothing about our relationship that was logical. </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p><br/>
At 10 o'clock that night, I texted Amelia. "I guess you're loved up but are you seriously never coming back again?" '</p>
<p>It took her a little less than 10 minutes to respond. "I'm not staying at Grizz’s place anymore. I’m at a hotel so I can figure some things out by myself."</p>
<p>"It's not fair just to dump all this on me and then never come back to talk to me about it,” I texted. I knew that text arguments never worked out. Somehow, I was too nervous to call my wife on the phone. The more I thought about Friday’s dinner, the madder I got. Had she planned to let me know that she was in love with Grizz that night, or had Grizz initiated that on their own? Maybe Amelia didn't want me to know any of it, thinking Grizz's interest in her would wane, and she'd keep me to fall back on. </p>
<p>"Some people just want stability, Delia." </p>
<p>I stared at the text, put down the phone. I picked up the phone again. What could she possibly mean? "What does that mean?" I wrote. </p>
<p>"Don't pretend you don't know!" </p>
<p>That made me even more furious. I resisted the impulse to hurl my phone onto the ground and smacked the wall instead. I hit it so hard the pain radiated into my elbow. When I cooled down, I wrote "wtf" </p>
<p>"Fine. Play coy.”</p>
<p>I watched the loading dots come in on the text. “One day you love me, one day you're a complete asshole to me. It’s been this way for literally years. One day you're over the moon about your life, another day you're depressed AF about your choices." </p>
<p>I started to cry. Wasn't this marriage, revealing your truth to your partner, even if it was irrational? I didn't know how I was going to behave one day to the next, and the least I could do was act the way I felt. She was, after all, the person who'd encouraged me to be more honest.</p>
<p>"Grizz is consistent. They know what the want and they're not wishy-washy about it. They're always calm, not just pretending to be chill like you do. You’re the most tightly wound person I know." </p>
<p>"You're being cruel. If you really feel this way you shouldn't bring it up by text!!!" </p>
<p>The dots loaded and loaded. "I know" </p>
<p>"OK. I get it, you just want to hate me so you can justify Grizz." </p>
<p>The dots loaded again. "I'll come back tomorrow morning. Will you be there" </p>
<p>"OK," I wrote. </p>
<p>No response from Amelia. I waited for five minutes, poured the rest of the wine into my glass. "Amelia?" I wrote. </p>
<p>No response. </p>
<p>That was it. That was all I was going to get from her tonight. </p><hr/>
<p>I had trouble sleeping that night. I usually liked when Amelia was gone for a conference or a work trip, but tonight I felt unmoored by everything that was happening. Maybe I was too easily satisfied, too willing to choose what was safe and easy. Maybe I really had less of an idea of what I wanted from life than a 21-year-old did. But that was natural, wasn't it? That was smart. I knew what the options were better than Grizz did, so it was more difficult for me to make a decision. </p>
<p>In the morning, I got out of bed groggy and nauseous early. I felt like I could sleep for 12 more hours, though I hadn't slept much that night. Coffee brewing, I turned on my phone, to see if either Amelia or Patsy had apologized. I didn't have any texts. Both women were mad at me for different reasons. I wasn't honest enough with Patsy, and I was too honest with Amelia. </p>
<p>I drank my coffee and took a shower. I put on the kind of clothes you wear if you expect to hang around the house all day, comfortable yoga pants and a baggy t-shirt. I didn't want Amelia to think that I'd just been waiting for her all morning, which I had. It depressed me to be playing these games with my wife. We'd always said how glad we were that we didn't have to deal with all the mind-fuckery our friends told us about in online dating. But here I was, trying to make my wife think I didn't care about her or our relationship.  </p>
<p>At 10am, I heard Amelia's key in the lock. I opened my laptop, so it looked like I'd been typing something very serious. She knew I didn't have any work to take home on my days off, but I wanted her to think I'd started a very necessary project of an indeterminate kind. </p>
<p>"Hey," she said, coming through the door. I half-thought that she'd rush over to hug me, like she often did when we'd had a fight and hadn't spoken for several hours. But she barely stepped inside. </p>
<p>"Hi," I said, closing my screen. I'd wanted to see her for days, but now that she was here, I dreaded the conversation we were going to have to have. "Where'd you stay last night?" </p>
<p>"The Wellington Inn." </p>
<p>I had no idea where the Georgetown Inn might be, but I nodded anyway. "Nice?" </p>
<p>"No." Amelia smiled, generously. </p>
<p>"Sorry." </p>
<p>Amelia shrugged and came to sit across from me at the table. "It doesn't matter." </p>
<p>I nodded back and here we were, two people wishing the other would initiate our conversation. </p>
<p>"I had a lot of time to think," Amelia said.</p>
<p>"That's good." I realized that I didn't think of Amelia as a thinker, only as someone who completed her work and came home. Sometimes she didn't tell me about things she'd been pondering for weeks, like how she planned to ask for a raise at work, until she'd already done them. I, on the other hand, told her the ideas that minute they spilled into my head, though she often interpreted my half-assed notions as fully-formed ideas. "What do you mean you want to change the living room furniture?" she asked me once. "We just bought it last year!" </p>
<p>"And one of the things I thought..." Amelia continued, looking at me straight on, "No. Not thought. Or realized. Because I've known this for a while-" </p>
<p>She couldn't look at me, and the tension in the room tightened. My pulse quickened and I felt my disorientation amplify. I knew what she was going to say because she'd known she ought to say it for a while. </p>
<p>"I think we should separate," she said, swallowing and staring at her hands. </p>
<p>I didn't feel anything. We'd talked like this often enough through our decade together, both logically and emotionally, and we'd always come to the conclusion that we'd devoted too many years to each other to break up. Those years would be wasted, we agreed, but now she was willing to waste them if she didn’t have to be with me any longer. "Look at me," I said. </p>
<p>She looked up, and I knew this time was different. She wouldn't come to the conclusion that she'd made a mistake later today, or tomorrow. I asked her a question that I already knew the answer to. "Is this about Grizz?" </p>
<p>She sighed. "You know it's not. Maybe I thought that opening up our relationship would, I don't know, rekindle our spark."</p>
<p>"So this is about sex?" </p>
<p>She nodded. “Partially.”</p>
<p>"Not about our partnership or our compatibility." </p>
<p>"We're not compatible if you're not attracted to me, Deels." </p>
<p>I pushed down my chin. I always thought that it was natural that my attraction to Amelia would fade as we became more familiar with how we looked sick or naked, peeing on the toilet. But I didn't think Amelia had noticed, or I thought she felt the same way about me. </p>
<p>"Right?" Amelia pushed. </p>
<p>"Are you still attracted to me?" I asked. </p>
<p>"Yes!" </p>
<p>I looked out the window. "How is that possible?" </p>
<p>"Jesus, Delia! You've been a dick to me for days, but now you can't even stomach telling me the truth?" </p>
<p>"Fine. I'm not." </p>
<p>“Not what?” </p>
<p>“All that attracted to you anymore.”</p>
<p>"See?" </p>
<p>"That’s natural, that happens to everyone! There’s no couple that holds onto that spark they had at 22. But there's so much more to a marriage. We communicate, we think the same way about the house, we-" </p>
<p>"I don't want to stop having sex at 35."</p>
<p>"You're with Grizz now. You can have sex with them. Sometimes we think only one person should meet our needs when-" </p>
<p>"I want my wife to be attracted to me." </p>
<p>"You know that feeling with fade with Grizz, too." </p>
<p>"It probably will." She took a great, heaving breath. "But now I know I have to work harder so that it won’t."</p>
<p>"With Grizz? Seriously?" </p>
<p>“With Grizz." </p>
<p>“It’s sad, Amelia. Really it is.” </p>
<p>“What?” </p>
<p>“Grizz is almost 15 years younger than you. That’s pathetic.” I was feeling mean. </p>
<p>Amelia shrugged. “Oh well,” she said. </p>
<p>We stared at each for a while after that, neither knowing what to say. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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